


Want Some, Need Some

by Eralk Fang (EralkFang)



Category: Rock of Ages (2012)
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EralkFang/pseuds/Eralk%20Fang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dennis, how does this exactly reconcile with living the rock and roll dream?”<br/>
</p><p>“Lonny, you’re a grown man on a plastic zebra. Just enjoy yourself.”<br/>
</p><p>Dennis and Lonny, from 1978 to 1987.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want Some, Need Some

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from [the Poison song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OaUZCP12i8). Where possible, I’ve tried to use the history of the Whisky a Go Go as the history of the Bourbon Room; the band mentioned did play at the Whisky in their early days. The Kip Winger incident is taken from the musical. ([Well, expanded upon from the musical.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TY2wHhggSU)) Dennis and Lonny go to [a real concert](http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/poison/1986/country-club-reseda-ca-6bd1420e.html); since that concert’s setlist is not available, I’ve used [the next tour date’s setlist](http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/poison/1986/san-jose-civic-auditorium-san-jose-ca-73d1420d.html) instead. (It’s not really a spoiler if you click on it now, but I’d rather you wait.) Also, Los Angeles traffic is _awful_ , just as a general note. 

Lonny’s used to preening when girls look at him like that, so preen he does for the owner of the Bourbon Room. _It can’t hurt_ , he thinks, hoping desperately that Dupree will not notice where his resume is slightly abridged.

But Dupree keeps looking back at him, only briefly glancing at the slip of paper in his hands. Lonny tries to smile reassuringly, but he’s getting distracted by something feeling like it’s melting in his stomach. He keeps it together—he has to, he needs this job like few things else he’s needed in his life—but Dupree isn’t just appraising him. He looks… _intrigued_. And not professionally so.

And Lonny is discovering that he is not feeling adverse to Dupree looking at him like that, which is sort of a huge shift of consciousness, as his ex-girlfriend back home would say.

“Well,” Dupree says, sitting back in his chair, waving the letter opener around lazily in the afternoon sunlight. “When can you start?”

“As soon as humanly possible,” Lonny answers, startled out of his contemplations and grateful for something practical to worry about.

“Tonight?” Dupree quirks an eyebrow; the melting thing gets worse.

“Yes, yes,” Lonny says, without really thinking about it, just wanting to back out of the room and deal with this somewhere other than in front of his new employer, “I can be here in a few hours, absolutely.”

“Good, because we need you. Go home. And change. This is a rock nightclub. Your shirt—“ Dupree leans forward, as if to touch Lonny’s shirt, but stops to simply gesture at it. Lonny is frozen. “It’s a little… _square_ for our crowd.”

Dupree rummages around in the drawers of his desk and produces a black t-shirt, which he hands to Lonny. “Bourbon Room t-shirt. Feel free to alter it, God knows everybody else on staff does.”

Lonny takes it from Dupree; their fingers brush and Lonny bites his lip. “Thanks.”

“Eight o’clock, sharp.” Dupree shuffles the papers on his desk and begins doing something official looking with them, which Lonny takes as his cue to leave.

As he reaches the door, he looks back at Dupree. Some impulse grabs him and he says, “Mr. Dupree?”

Dupree looks up from his paperwork—calm, collected, and keen-eyed. _Do you want to get coffee_ dies on Lonny’s lips; he probably misread the whole thing, and he shouldn’t damage his new job right off the bat by offending his boss. This might be Los Angeles, Dupree might seem… _interested_ , but you never know. “Yes, Lonny?”

“Uh… nothing. Thanks again, Mr. Dupree.”

“Please, call me Dennis.”

—

  
“Oh my God, you’re wearing a single shirt at a time. This is an historic event. I should record this for posterity.”

It’s a carnival in the middle of July in Los Angeles and Dennis is wearing a KISS t-shirt without a protective layer of clothing underneath it, almost like a normal human being. It’s sort of blowing Lonny’s mind.

“How’s your sleeve allergy doing? I saw you _once_ in a t-shirt with sleeves. It’s like I introduced you to the concept of altering shirts and you never looked back.” Dennis retorts, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. He turns to the surly teenage girl manning the cotton candy machine. “Yes, one, please.”

Lonny has something incredibly witty to say to that—he’ll think of it shortly, he’s sure—but then Dennis hands him a cloud of brightly colored cotton candy. “Hold this,” Dennis instructs him. As Dennis pays, Lonny takes a few furtive bites off the top.

“It’s good,” he says, handing it back to Dennis.

“I can’t trust you with anything,” Dennis responds, but he seems pleased. It’s a beautiful day, they’re out in the sun for once in their lives, and, somehow, Lonny is hanging out with his boss and it doesn’t feel _weird_.

Ever since Lonny became manager—by virtue of being the one person Dennis can tolerate telling him he can be an idiot at times, although undoubtedly helped by Jonathan’s spectacular and near literal bridge-burning departure—it’s been different. He’s spending most of his time with Dennis at work and the rest of the time either partying or asleep, so it’s starting to feel weird when he’s more or less sober and Dennis isn’t there, like it’s throwing off his internal rhythm or something like that. So when Dennis said he had ended up with two tickets to a visiting carnival as part of a failed promotional event and asked if he wanted to go, Lonny was surprised he felt like he had to ask.

He hasn’t been to a carnival since he was a kid—there was one outside Birmingham that he went to once or twice with his parents, before everything went down, and, memorably, once with the statuesque Linda Jones from the sixth form, who let him put his hand up her shirt (it was only over her bra, but it was still a cherished victory for the young Lonny). It feels a bit weird: like deja vu, or going back to your childhood home long after it was sold to entirely different people.

“Dennis, how does this exactly reconcile with living the rock and roll dream?” Lonny asks, as Dennis stares a child off a particular carousel horse.

“Lonny,” Dennis says, as he gets onto the horse, perching his recently won stuffed bear on the molded saddle, “you’re a grown man on a plastic zebra. Just enjoy yourself.”

All in all, it’s a splendid day; Lonny has managed to lodge not one, not two, but three different brightly colored golf balls up the nose of the stupid pirate skeleton statue on the minigolf course, as well as develop sunburn on the top of his head, which is a truly novel experience. And now Dennis feels like a real person instead of like his very cool boss.

_Like he’s in reach_ , Lonny thinks.

As they head back to the car—Dennis wants to catch some sleep before work—Lonny finds himself handed the stuffed bear. “Here,” Dennis says. Lonny fumbles a bit for the bear, and their hands touch. The heavy weight of the half-digested funnel cake in Lonny’s stomach gives way to a rolling, melting sensation.

Lonny says, “What am I supposed to do with this?” Sarcasm tends to be his instant reaction to this sort of thing, which has worked in his favor more than not with girls, but he instantly regrets it with Dennis.

“Whatever you want,” Dennis says, shrugging. His hand falls away from the bear and Lonny experiences a mad, sudden urge to pick up Dennis’ hand with his own.

He doesn’t.

But he does keep the bear.

—

  
“Dennis, hi,” Lonny says into the precinct phone. He fluffs his newly cut hair and tries not to make eye contact with the other gentlemen in the holding cells or Los Angeles’ finest.

“I’m assuming you’re calling to explain to me why you’re not at work,” The connection is awful, but Dennis’ anticipatory tone comes through loud and clear.

“I need you to come down to the police station and bail me out,” Lonny says, enunciating clearly. He rehearsed saying this in the back of the police cruiser, over and over again. It’s like ripping off a bandage, he reasons; get it over all at once.

“You got _arrested_?”

“Arrested is such a harsh word, Dennis. It’s more like being… held against my will by the legal authorities. Just because of a simple disagreement between two fellow connoisseurs of rock—“

Dennis _sighs_ , and it’s like an avalanche; Lonny can practically feel it reverberate in the receiver from blocks away. “What did you do?”

“I shivved a guy?” The statement turns into a question and Lonny screws up his face for Dennis’ answer.

But there’s just silence on the phone and, then an odd, shameful feeling in Lonny’s gut. It takes him a moment to identify it—he’s disappointed Dennis. Lonny is used to being a disappointment—it’s the reason his relationship with his father is so strained—but he’s not used to _caring_ that he’s disappointed someone.

The pause goes on long enough that the police officer who escorted him looks at him suspiciously. Lonny grins nervously at her and covers the mouthpiece to call out, “Still on the line.”

He uncovers the mouthpiece to hiss, “Dennis?”

“Out of pure curiosity, why would you ‘shiv’ a guy?” Lonny has to hand it to Dennis; he’s the only man he knows who can make quotation marks atmospherically palpable.

“He was talking shit about Kip Winger.”

Fifteen minutes later, Dennis walks into the police station; ten minutes after that, Lonny is a free man, walking back to Dennis’ car.

They walk back in companionable silence. Dennis unlocks the driver door, and Lonny climbs through it into the passenger seat of the car—the passenger door is busted, and opening it requires way too much effort to close it again.

“Are you good to work?” Dennis asks once he’s taken his seat, eying him carefully.

“Of course I am. I was fueled solely by righteousness. I was going to leave and head straight for the Bourbon, but then he opened his _stupid_ mouth—”

“God, I can’t _believe_ you just shivved him. I would have broken his nose.”

“Can’t risk my delicate hands.”

Dennis smiles a little at the joke and Lonny feels something melt within him. It’s calming, in the car with Dennis; the lights of the Strip floating by in stripes, the way Dennis looks ahead but all his focus is on him. The way the lights reflect in his blue eyes.

Whatever melted is now twisting. “Dennis?” he ventures.

Dennis suddenly launches into a stream of obscenities as someone cuts him off. It’s impressive. Lonny almost feels more melty.

“I’m sorry, Lonny, you were saying?” Dennis looks right at him—they’re at a light—and Lonny tries to formulate something about blue eyes and disappointment and putting faces on faces, but it doesn’t come together. He just stares at Dennis like an idiot.

“Just… thanks,” he says.

“Of course,” Dennis says, and smiles at him.

_I’m doomed_ , Lonny thinks.

—

  
“The barbacks should be doing this. That new kid should be doing this. Where is he?” Lonny complains. “Is he scaring off yet another attractive waitress again? I told you, that man is waitress Kryptonite.”

“Lonny, I swear to God, if you don’t hold that ladder steady, I will aim for you when I fall,” Dennis calls over his shoulder.

They’re changing the marquee; tonight’s headliner has dropped out, to no one’s surprise (a betting pool on their nature of their inevitable cancellation erupts whenever they book them), and they’re putting up the usual “TONIGHT!” sign up, along with the replacement band’s name. Usually… in fact, _always_ , it’s the barbacks’ job, but Dennis pulled Lonny aside to do it themselves tonight for some reason fathomable only to himself.

“Is it Guns _and_ Roses or Guns _n_ Roses?” Dennis asks.

“ _N_ Roses,” Lonny responds.

“Good, someone stole our D.”

Lonny stares off down Sunset in relative silence; the Los Angeles traffic became background noise to him some years ago. It’s a calm time, between rush hour and opening, and the sun is setting on Sunset. Elsewhere in the city, the night owls, the rockers, the freaks—his kind of people—are starting to stir. And here they are, making sure the Bourbon Room— _the_ Bourbon Room—is ready to rock their worlds and change their lives, even if it’s just for tonight.

He wouldn’t trade any of this for the _world_. He glances up at Dennis, who is looking down at him fondly.

Lonny grins back, something twisting pleasurably in his chest.

“You know,” Dennis says, once he’s back on the ground, “I didn’t bring you out here just to change the marquee.”

“Why’d you bring me out here, then?” Lonny gives up on trying to fold the ladder back up. Dennis is leaning against the ladder, elbow resting on a rung and fiddling with one of his rings. He inspects it, and then looks up at Lonny, lips pursed.

Dennis hasn’t looked at him that way since—well, since the day they met. He feels exposed under that look, as if Dennis knows something that he doesn’t. Or something that he’s never told him.

Something like hope rises in Lonny’s chest, and he leans an infinitesimal amount forward, saying, “Look, Dennis…”

“It’s going to be eight years for you at the Bourbon next month,” Dennis says in his usual tone. Lonny bites his lip, nods, and pulls away that infinitesimal amount. “I just… I wanted to thank you for sticking with me—with the club that long.”

“Yeah, of course,” Lonny breathes. Sincerity sits awkwardly on them; Dennis is looking at him, through him, and Lonny has no idea what else to say, because what he does want to say could cost him this. Instead, he coughs and glances up.

“I think,” he says, after a moment, “that Guns n’ Roses also has an apostrophe in it.”

—

  
Every night of Lonny’s life is usually some kind of adventure, but he especially relishes the rare nights he and Dennis ditch the Bourbon to go “scout talent”, which, as far as he’s concerned, actually means “writing off going to shows as a business expense”. So even though they’ve both emerged from almost an hour in Dennis’ car (the air conditioning finally gave out the week before) and Los Angeles traffic a bit worse for wear, nothing can dampen his spirits. Ricky, one of the barbacks, has been talking up this band ever since he saw them in Long Beach a few months ago, and it’s time to see if Poison is Bourbon Room material.

They barely make it through the doors on time and the floor is pretty packed by the time they get in, so they end up in the shadows at the edge of the crowd, barely incorporated.

When the band hits the stage, they do so _hard_ , with no hesitation. And they’re sincere enough that he feels like the tarted up blond lead singer—it’s a bit too much make-up for Lonny’s taste, but he respects their commitment to their look—is telling him about his relationship woes even though they’re separated by the sweaty crowd and the groupies clawing at his calves.

“Should’ve opened with this,” Lonny says into Dennis’ ear when they launch into their second song. “Energy’s a bit better, and it’s more topical.”

“Just enjoy the show,” Dennis says. “Just feel it.” Dennis certainly looks like _he_ is; his eyes are half-closed and he’s almost smiling. Lonny knows that look—Dennis is connecting with the music. And that’s always a good sign for a band.

Lonny doesn’t need to be told twice. By the time the band launches into a particularly inspired song about the joys of talking dirty, they’ve ended up in the middle of the pit and he’s going a bit hoarse from screaming. Tarts though they may be, Poison puts on a damn good show, and Lonny knows they’re going to be at the Bourbon soon.

“Dennis?”

“Yeah?”

They both turn at the same moment and—well, Lonny hadn’t realized the crowd had pushed them this close. Their faces are a breath away from each other, and the music and energy that has been shooting through Lonny vanishes into the distance, leaving his focus utterly narrowed on Dennis. He’s suddenly painfully aware of the fact that here, in Reseda, they’re just a pair of nobodies in the crowd, and everyone else is looking the other way.

Dennis’ eyes dart to his mouth, and Lonny leans down to close their slight height gap—

And someone behind them falls, and Lonny can feel his trainers being soaked with beer. Years of experience have given Lonny a kind of Pavlovian response to downed drunkards, and he’s got the woman back on her feet and propped up on her apologetic companion before he even has to think.

The only thing he does think, turning back to find Dennis absorbed in the music once more, is that he’s missed his shot.

—

  
They’re alone in the Bourbon, and everything is going to go to hell. The Man (well, the Oddly Familiar Woman in this particular case) is finally going to take them down, once and for all. Lonny frantically tries to imagine scenarios where he and Dennis just pick up and move on, but Dennis isn’t getting any younger. Neither is he, if he’s going to be totally honest. He wants to panic, but Dennis is panicking, in his own quiet way, and Dennis _never_ panics, that’s the _point_ of Dennis, and if Dennis is panicking, then _he_ has to be the calm one.

“I just feel like I’ve let everyone down,” Dennis says, and he sounds so defeated that Lonny is seized by the awful, horrible idea that he could, someday soon, never see Dennis again. And if that’s the alternative… he can’t just sit here and do _nothing_.

“Not everyone,” Lonny says, and reaches out and touches Dennis, just touches his shoulder, the way he’s wanted to for so long.

He presses his eyes closed and braces himself.


End file.
